As I said in my previous post, I have limited sympathy for Sarah Palin.
However, this, from Andrew Sullivan (on top of the never-ending flogging of Trig Palin conspiracy theories), is outrageous. I saw the reference to the “white trash concupiscence” Palin-slam in Douthat’s column and wondered who could have written that. Despite my knowledge of Andrew’s raging PDS, I was shocked . . . . I fully intend for this to be my last visit to The Daily Dish, and I have to say that at this point, if someone started a campaign to get The Atlantic website to drop Andrew, I’d back it. Imagine the reaction if a journalist/blogger writing about a black politician referred to “ghetto concupiscence”, without even using the word “black.” [Emphasis mine]
While I agree that Andrew Sullivan's criticisms of Sarah Palin during the election were often over-the-top (and sometimes downright nasty), I don't quite understand why Young finds this particular comment so uniquely offensive. How else would you describe the Palin Family's never-ending psychodrama? To me, the Levi Johnston affair alone seems like it could easily be described as "white-trash concupiscence" . . . .
Honestly, I wouldn't have expected this kind of politically correct nonsense from Young. In my opinion, she remains one of the most insightful and fair-minded feminist writers out there.
During the Kobe Bryant trial, Young penned a brilliant and well-reasoned op-ed on "rape shield laws." It's probably the most intelligent consideration of the subject that I've ever read.
An excerpt:
Like many such cases, the Kobe Bryant case is primarily a "he said, she said" matter, with ambiguous corroborating evidence that county judge Frederick Gannett characterized as weak even as he sent the case to trial. The woman's sexual activities prior to the alleged rape may well be relevant to the physical evidence; if, as the defense has hinted, she engaged in consensual sex shortly after her encounter with Bryant, it may well be relevant to the question of whether she was raped; if she is mentally unstable, it may well be relevant to her credibility.
These are wrenching questions. Obviously, a woman with a history of mental illness or substance abuse could still be a rape victim. Obviously, the prospect of having embarrassing personal details exposed in court (let alone paraded in the media) may discourage victims from coming forward. Just as obviously, suppressing relevant evidence may result in sending an innocent person to jail. And if it's frightening to put oneself in the place of a sexual assault victim who finds herself on trial in the courtroom, it is no less terrifying to imagine that you -- or your husband or brother or son -- could be accused of rape and denied access to evidence that could exonerate him.
For some feminists, the dogma that "women never lie" means that there is, for all intents and purposes, no presumption of innocence for the defendant. After the 1997 trial of sportscaster Marv Albert, defending the judge's decision to admit compromising information about Albert's sexual past but not about his accuser's, attorney Gloria Allred decried "the notion that there's some sort of moral equivalency between the defendant and the victim" -- forgetting that as long as the defendant hasn't been convicted, he and his accuser are indeed moral equals in the eyes of the law. Wendy Murphy has blasted Kobe Bryant's attorneys for feeding uncorroborated rumors about the alleged victim to the media maw. Yet, appearing on Fox News, she made the claim, highly prejudicial to Bryant and so far untested in a court of law, that the woman "suffered pretty terrible injuries" the likes of which she had not seen despite having prosecuted "hundreds of sex crimes cases."
8 comments:
I don't quite understand why Young finds this particular comment so uniquely offensive.
I imagine that's where the "last straw" thing comes in. The last straw doesn't have to be a brick. It just has to be one more thing, the thing that causes all of the other bricks that came before to be unbearable. This comment isn't uniquely offensive, but if she were already tired of and offended by the coverage Sullivan was devoting to Sarah Palin, the classist statement alone may have been enough.
Obviously, a woman with a history of mental illness or substance abuse could still be a rape victim.
The issue I have with this is that it, well, it is based on the supposition that women who have a history of mental illness or women who have sex (even directly after having sex) are more likely to lie about being raped. Some women with mental illness may lie about being raped, and some women who have sex (even sex after saying she was raped) may lie about being raped. But that is highly unfair to the many, many women living with mental illness and who have *not* lied about rape, and the women who will have sex after being raped (since there is no "right way" to react to rape, and to label something suspicious is skirting to labeling it the 'wrong' way). What that says is "Who you are is defective, and can be used against you in the court of law".
Feminists I know don't think "women never lie". What they do think, though, is that taking an aspect of one woman who might have lied and applying that standard to all women who share that aspect is sexist - and helping in the whole "seeking justice" thing.
The sex-happy, mentally ill alleged rape victim is equal under the eyes of the law. But in the eyes of the jury? In many cases prejudice about what a sex-happy, mentally ill alleged rape victim is capable of is what creates reasonable doubt. And that is based on what we think of sex-happy women, and people with histories of mental illness. And that decision may be right (or wrong) in the specific case in front of them, but it is certainly not true in the aggregate.
Er, I pulled the wrong quote out. The whole second section should be based on this quote:
if she is mentally unstable, it may well be relevant to her credibility.
If the accuser has a history of schizophrenia or delusions, this speaks to the issue of credibility. It's not that women with a history of mental illness are more likely to lie about rape specifically; rather, people with mental illness are more likely to make false claims. Certainly, that’s not universally true, but it’s an aspect of the case that the jury should be able to consider.
As you know, there is often little physical evidence in rape cases. The jury must simply weigh the credibility of the accuser against the accused. No single issue should be determinative, but evidence that speaks to credibility should at least be admissible in court. I think a history of mental illness is clearly relevant. The judge can caution the jury against making unreasonable assumptions on the basis of this evidence.
If the accuser had sex with multiple partners immediately after claiming that she was raped, I think that should also be admissible. The Federal Rules of Evidence allow the prosecution to introduce all kinds of inculpatory evidence about the actions of the accused prior to (and following) the alleged rape. Unless we want to bias the legal system in favor of the accuser, we have to allow the defense to introduce similar exculpatory evidence about the actions of the accuser . . . or change the Federal Rules of Evidence to discount this same evidence as it relates to the accused.
You’re right that people are prone to stereotyping and the inclusion this kind of exculpatory evidence may cause some jury members to simply dismiss the accuser’s account, but I’d rather have a legal system that’s bias in favor of the accused. Unfortunately, we have a legal system that relies on a dozen laypeople to decide guilt or innocence, and people aren’t perfect.
Sorry, I didn't read your second comment until now.
I'm not sure I understand the distinction between mentally ill and mentally unstable.
Is there a difference?
I'm not sure I understand the distinction between mentally ill and mentally unstable.
Is there a difference?
Well, yes. First, there is a growing movement of people living with various forms of mental illness fighting against the stigma of mental illness, of which there is a lot.
Secondly, mental illness encompasses everything from someone suffering from depression or anxiety disorders to those with schizophrenia. When people hear the term "mental illness", they generally lump everyone into the "mentally unstable" group - and that isn't true. For example, someone suffering from depression is living with a mental illness; however, that does not make them mentally unstable, especially if they are getting treatment.
I also have a problem with revealing to the court that the alleged victim is a schizophrenic because that does bias the jury against the alleged victim. Those on the margins of society are already vulnerable, and to make them more vulnerable in court when their medical diagnosis can be completely separate from their accusation is unfair to the accuser. I would agree that if the victim suffered delusions of being raped, and if those types of delusions were documented, then that probably should be admissable as evidence. But merely suffering from delusions or schizophrenia shouldn't automatically bias the jury against the credibility of the witness. To do that does not serve justice either.
In general, I would agree that a history of depression or anxiety (or some other mood disorder) shouldn't be relevant. It would depend on the circumstances of the case. But I think a history of any kind of schizotypal personality disorder is always relevant.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that involves atypical thought patterns and beliefs, and the jury should be made aware of it. When you disallow important exculpatory evidence like this, you're biasing the jury against the accused.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that involves atypical thought patterns and beliefs, and the jury should be made aware of it. When you disallow important exculpatory evidence like this, you're biasing the jury against the accused.
And when you allow it, you are biasing the jury against the accuser - and ignoring that the vulnerable, like those suffering from schizophrenia, are a particularly vulnerable group when it comes to such things as sexual assaults for the very reason that they will very likely not be believed. And, there are subsets of schizophrenia; not every schizophrenic suffers from Paranoid Schizophrenia, the type with delusions and hallucinations. There are antipsychotic medications, allowing for the management of symptoms.
I'm for allowing evidence that the person suffering from schizophrenia has suffered delusions or hallucinations about being raped prior to their contact with the accused. I'm a bit on the fence about that, due to the fact that a medical professional could misinterpret someone's outcry of mistreatment as simply a product of their illness. But I see where such information would be necessary.
However, if there is none, if the person suffers from no delusions or if those delusions center around aliens or government conspiracies, then I don't see how the inclusion of that information would do anything other than prejudice the jury against the alleged victim.
I think we just disagree on this point.
I don't see why a person has to have a history of delusions -- and delusions about rape in particular -- for a severe mental illness to alter his or her perception of reality. And regardless, I think the burden should be on the prosecution to prove that a severe mental illness does not in any way affect the accuser's credibility.
The Hofstra rape case never went to trial, but the accuser in that case had a history of mental illness. To my knowledge, she'd never experienced any "delusions" (and certainly not rape delusions), but her mental illness was clearly a relevant factor in her false accusation. Certainly, the authorities felt that way. She's now facing mandatory psychiatric care instead of jailtime.
I agree that we need to do more to protect vulnerable groups in society, but that shouldn't mean reducing the burden of proof in criminal trials by limiting potentially exculpatory evidence.
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